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title, source
| title | source |
|---|---|
| This Obsidian Weekly Template Can Completely Replace Your Daily Notes | https://medium.com/geekculture/this-obsidian-weekly-template-can-completely-replace-your-daily-notes-cff259116c8e |
No more losing gems in the daily note jungle!
](https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans?source=post_page-----cff259116c8e--------------------------------)
](https://medium.com/geekculture?source=post_page-----cff259116c8e--------------------------------)
Image by Author
The thing I love most about Obsidian is the space and the tools it gives me to freely play and experiment with knowledge management.
While I’m interested in what other Obsidianites get up to, I no longer feel pressure to copy anyone else’s methods. I’m quite content to keep things simple.
The last time I wrote about how I moved my daily notes to a weekly log, I talked about why I made the switch:
- Some days I’d write a little, other days a lot, and occasionally, not at all.
- I felt uncomfortably like I should write every day, even when I didn’t want to .
- It was a giant pain to wade back through hundreds of daily notes looking for things I’d written that search terms didn’t seem to be surfacing.
- Bundling days into neat little groups of 7 fitted in perfectly with my desire to simplify the way I plan, as well as the way I take notes and find them again.
This article is all about the practical details of my new weekly log, and how you can set up and adapt your own. I’ll take you through the four sections one at a time, showing what they look like in both edit and preview modes. I’ll also give tips for making each section work for you.
FYI, the theme I’m using at the moment is Minimal.
This article assumes you know your way around the Obsidian interface, and that you can configure settings and install plugins. Nick Milo’s getting started video or A Tough Nut’s tutorial are good places to get up to speed.
Before You Start
To make the date automations and layouts work, you will need to install and enable these plugins:
- Calendar
- Periodic Notes
- Obsidian Columns
Keep in mind that the header hierarchy is important. It allows each of the sections to fold away neatly, depending on where you want to focus. Keep that in mind before changing things around.
Tip: The Outline pane is another speedy way to navigate your weekly log.
Weekly Log — Image by Author
Anatomy of the Weekly Log
Let’s examine each of the log’s four sections and see what they look like under the hood. The code blocks below are what you’ll need to make a template that the Periodic Note plugin can use to create your weekly logs, with all the dates in the right place.
Image by Author
Section 1 — Dates
This assumes you have your weekly files in the year-month format, eg. 2022–07
Week number, month link, month and year:
# {{date:[Week] ww}} [[{{date:YYYY-MM}}|🪴]] {{date:MMM gggg}}
To omit the cute icon and simply have the week number and clickable month link, use:
# {{date:[Week] ww}} [[{{date:YYYY-MM}}|{{date:MMM gggg}}]]
Days of the week linking to daily notes:
==S {{sunday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} · M {{monday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} · T {{tuesday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} · W {{wednesday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} · T {{thursday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} · F {{friday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} · S {{saturday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} ^w{{date:ww}}==
I’ve placed a block reference at the end of these links so I can compile them (via transclusion) into a cute and practical calendar on my monthly page.
To be honest I rarely click on these daily links, but I keep them around because I like the look of them on the page from a design perspective.
Tip: Don’t use the daily note links on the weekly page until you’ve generated them with the Periodic Note plugin, using your chosen template. I used to create days a few weeks ahead by clicking on them in the Calendar pane.
Image by Author
Section 2 — Intentions
Intentions or to dos for the week. Just so you know, there’s a good reason I write many of my to do items as if they were already done.
I was so happy to discover that placing lists in a quote block allows them to be transcluded with the formatting and line breaks intact! I held a quiet but joyous party in my head the day I realised this list can be pulled into daily or monthly notes looking just the way it does on the weekly log.
I like to separate my list into three sections: personal, work, and completed. It’s fun to see the top two lists diminish as more items get moved down to the completed section.
> **WEEK {{date:gggg}}-W{{date:ww}} INTENTIONS** > - [ ] Personal intention > --- > - [ ] Work intention > --- > - [x] Completed > --- ^{{date:ww}}i
The block reference at the end is simply the current week number with the letter i for Intention.
Tip: Use a hotkey to quickly shift your tasks up or down. Settings > Hotkeys > Move line up/down. I use Command + Option + Up/Down Arrow.
Image by Author
Section 3 — Summary
This section is the equivalent of layer 4 in Tiago Forte’s progressive summarisation method. It can be transcluded onto a master summary page for a nice overview of the year.
# 2022 Weekly Summaries > {{date:YYYY}}-W{{date:ww}} | {{sunday:MMM D}}–{{saturday:MMM D}} > Locations · Events > - 1 > - ^w{{date:ww}}s
The clickable week is superfluous when viewing it on the weekly log page, but very handy when it’s transcluded elsewhere.
Month and Quarter Intentions:
{{date:gggg-MM}}#^{{date:ggggMM}}o {{date:YYYY}}-Q{{date:Q}}#^q{{date:Q}}o
I view these intentions by hovering over the link and pressing Command (Control). Adding ! before the link would display them as a list, but I'm happy to save the real estate and access them as needed.
Image by Author
Section 4 — Notes
Here’s where it all happens! The Notes section is divided into a weekly planner, and general notes. To simplify, stick to free form notes only.
Weekly planner:
# 🗓️ --- ## {{sunday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} ⚘ - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - --- ## {{monday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - --- ## {{tuesday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - --- ## {{wednesday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - --- ## {{thursday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - --- ## {{friday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - --- ## {{saturday:gggg-MM-DD ddd}} - !!!col - 1 - - 2 - ---
You’ll need to enable the Obsidian Columns plugin for this section to display correctly. I write appointments on the left and day-specific notes on the right. Having the two columns makes it more compact than showing everything in a linear list.
Adjust the proportion of the columns to suit your needs by playing with the numbers 1 and 2.
If you don’t want the days of the week to be links, write them like this instead, changing the date format to suit your preference:
{{saturday:ddd D}} = Sat 16
{{saturday:dddd D}} = Saturday 16
I see the weekly planner as a nice-to-have section rather than an essential. It’s where I take a look at my week before it gets here to get an idea of how my intentions will fit into the available time.
If a weekly planner isn’t something that resonates with you, just stick with dated freeform notes.
Speaking of freeform notes, it’s a good idea to precede the notes section with an H1 icon, to help with folding the sections.
# ≡
Of course you can write “Notes” or similar instead of using an icon.
Another way to make the current day’s notes easier to get to, saving you having to scroll all the way to the end of the page, is to insert a moveable placeholder.
Something like this:
# ⌚
Choose any icon or word for the placeholder, but be sure to make it H1 so the sections above it will fold correctly. You can copy-paste it into a new position each day, or use the Move Line Up/Down hotkeys.
Nice…But I Still Really Like Daily Notes!
Oh I get it, I really do! There’s something fresh and encouraging about the idea of waking up to a brand new daily note.
It’s possible to experience some of the benefits of a weekly log while continuing to use separate files for daily notes. If you want to use both, simply transclude the notes section of your daily notes onto the weekly page, or the day-specific section of your weekly page onto its corresponding daily note.
Detailed instructions here.
My first iteration of the weekly log had daily notes appearing on the weekly page, but that didn’t last long. It felt too complicated and like I was doubling up. The day sections of my weekly planner automatically appear on my daily pages, ready for the next time I revisit them.
Conclusion
As I discussed in detail in my first article on this topic, a weekly log in Obsidian allows you to take notes as they come to mind in a simplified, consolidated manner that doesn’t rely on plugins.
There’s still a place to write without having to think about where things should go, and each note is still associated with the day on which it was written.
With only 52 (progressively summarised) weekly pages to search through instead of 365 daily files, you’ll be much less likely to lose an important note.
Do you have any questions, comments, or bright ideas to add to those I’ve shared? Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter.
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